Police officers from the Sûreté du Québec in Val-d’Or who say they have experienced “social opprobrium”, following a report from the show Investigationshould obtain nearly $3 million in damages from Radio-Canada for defamation, their lawyer said on Monday, while the state-owned company believes it has done everything “by the book”.
“We have 42 police officers who have all suffered damage, they have been the subject of insults, their reputation has been destroyed. They have all experienced social stigma with the indigenous community and the community in general,” said M.e Marco Gaggino, this Monday at the Montreal courthouse.
Just after, Me Geneviève Gagnon of Radio-Canada defended tooth and nail a public interest report which “contributed to freeing people to speak out” about “a few police officers who were corrupting relations between police officers and indigenous people”.
It is in this context that the $2.9 million civil defamation trial opened this morning between 42 Sûreté du Québec police officers and Radio-Canada, in connection with the report “Abuse of the SQ: women break the silence” broadcast in 2015 on the show Investigation.
Me Marco Gaggino represents 42 Val-d’Or police officers who are demanding nearly $3M from Radio-Canada for a report on the show Enquête published in 2015. PHOTO MICHAËL NGUYEN
Photo Michaël Nguyen
Two visions
Journalist Josée Dupuis thus gave voice to indigenous women from Val-d’Or in Abitibi, who claimed to have been victims of physical and sexual violence by police officers.
This report caused a shock wave, pushing the government to create the Viens commission on relations between Aboriginal people and public services.
An investigation was entrusted to the Montreal police, but the Crown did not lay charges, due to lack of sufficient evidence to obtain a criminal conviction.
“The public interest is indisputable, the investigation [journalistique] was done according to the rules of the art, it led to positive changes in our society,” said Mr.e Gagnon by rejecting any idea of defamation, especially since no police officer had been named in the report.
The 42 Sûreté du Québec police officers at the origin of the lawsuit, who are each demanding a few tens of thousands of dollars, do not however see things the same way, affirming that the journalist Josée Dupuis had not verified several pieces of information before to publish them.
“We can’t just believe a person, we have to corroborate what they say,” said M.e Gaggino recalling that freedom of expression was not absolute.
Investigation under the magnifying glass
He thus gave as an example an assertion in the report, linked to a cross-country ski chalet where events of a sexual nature between police officers and indigenous women allegedly took place. However, according to the lawyer, the information disseminated was not corroborated.
“This is the type of proof that will be made [lors du procès]”, said the lawyer, suggesting that the report will be scrutinized by the courts.
However, he took the trouble to emphasize that the procedures were not intended to “restrict freedom of speech”, and that the whole thing should not be seen as a prosecution against indigenous women.
Radio-Canada’s lawyer, however, affirmed that what emerged from the police’s interrogations was that they did not believe the indigenous women in the report.
In total, the civil trial is scheduled to last three months, before Judge Babak Barin of the Superior Court of Quebec.